{"id":931628,"date":"2026-10-13T15:46:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/931628\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:46:18","slug":"study-shows-caitlin-clark-led-rookie-class-fueled-436-surge-in-wnba-social-media-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/931628\/","title":{"rendered":"Study shows Caitlin Clark-led rookie class fueled 436% surge in WNBA social media views"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA had a \u201cmodest social media presence, at best\u201d before Fever G Caitlin Clark and the rest of the 2024 rookie class arrived, but their arrival helped fuel \u201ca 436% jump\u201d in the league\u2019s social media views that season, according to Dana Hunsinger of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. In late 2023, the league recorded 373 million total official video views across all of its social media accounts. Associate Professor of Finance at Indiana Univ. Columbus and Division Head Dr. Ryan Brewer refers to the 2024 spike as a \u201cquantum leap,\u201d adding it was \u201cled by real-time viral loops of the incoming rookie class and the highlight reels of Clark.\u201d Brewer\u2019s study, \u201cThe Structural Transformation of WNBA Media & Consumer Economics in the pre- and post-Caitlin Clark Era,\u201d found that by the time Clark finished her rookie season, the WNBA\u2019s social media views had \u201cexploded to nearly 2 billion.\u201d By Brewer\u2019s calculation, Clark \u201cwas responsible for 26.5% of the WNBA\u2019s leaguewide activity for the 2024 season, including attendance<\/a>, merchandise sales and television.\u201d One of every six tickets sold at a WNBA arena \u201cwere attributed to Clark.\u201d Total TV viewership<\/a> due to Clark \u201cwas up 300%, and 45% of total broadcast value came from Fever games.\u201d The league\u2019s merchandise \u201csales catapulted 500%, with Clark ranking No. 1\u201d — followed by Dream F Angel Reese. The Fever\u2019s regular-season game attendance \u201caveraged more than 17,000 fans,\u201d the first time a WNBA team had drawn more than 300,000 fans in a season.\u202fClark\u2019s regular-season games \u201cwere watched by 1.2 million viewers on average, which was 199% more than non-Clark WNBA games\u201d (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 10\/13<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA had a \u201cmodest social media presence, at best\u201d before Fever G Caitlin Clark and the rest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[461,49,48,75,82,630,4143],"class_list":["post-931628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}